Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination is an edited collection at the intersection of theology, religion, and philosophy and fantasy literature and table-top games. The volume begins with an invocation of the "old magic" of pre-modern theology and follows with analyses of classical Christian fantasy. The second section articulates a "post-Christian" turn in fantasy since the late twentieth century, arguing how fantasy can serve to re-enchant the imagination in ways that moves beyond traditional Christianity. The last section on fantasy at play explores how religion is at play in Dungeons and Dragons and in Magic: the Gathering.
Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination is an edited collection at the intersection of theology, religion, and philosophy and fantasy literature and table-top games. The volume begins with an invocation of the "old magic" of pre-modern theology and follows with analyses of classical Christian fantasy. The second section articulates a "post-Christian" turn in fantasy since the late twentieth century, arguing how fantasy can serve to re-enchant the imagination in ways that moves beyond traditional Christianity. The last section on fantasy at play explores how religion is at play in Dungeons and Dragons and in Magic: the Gathering.
1. Introduction: Theology, Fantasy, and the Imagination
Andrew D. Thrasher and Austin M. Freeman
Part I: Invocations
2. The Old Magic
Nicholas Adams
Part II: Classical Christian Fantasy: Renewing Christian Imagination
3. Sins of the Imagination
Austin M. Freeman
4. C.S. Lewis, Apologetics, and the Imagination: Breaking the Spell of Secularism
Alison Milbank
5. Between Tolkien and the Philosophers: Greek and Scholastic Theories of Phantasia
Giovanni Carmine Costabile
Part III: Post-Christian Fantasy: Opening the Door Beyond
6. Why Theology Should Always Be Fantasy: Imagination, Fantasy, and Science-Fictional Messianism in the Writings of Rabbi Shagar
Levi Morrow
7. Theology in Shadow: Sin and Redemption in Ursula K. Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea
Oliver D. Crisp
8. Cosmology as Agnostic Self-Actualization in Terry Pratchett’s Discworld
U-Wen Low
9. Fantastic Inter-Religious Resourcement in Robert Jordan and David Eddings
Andrew D. Thrasher
10. The Hero as God: An Exploration of Mormon Soteriology in the Fantasy Novels of Orson Scott Card and Brandon Sanderson
Josh Herring
Part IV: Fantasy at Play: Theologizing with Fantastic Games
11. Imaginative Hermeneutical Theology: Paul Ricoeur and Dungeons & Dragons
Scott Donahue-Martens
12. Magic: The Gathering and Meaning: The Theological Outlook of the World’s Most Complex Game
Jacob Torbeck
Andrew D. Thrasher is an adjunct instructor of Religious Studies at George Mason University and Tidewater Community College.
Austin M. Freeman teaches at Houston Christian University and King’s College New York.
It is exciting to see the continuation of the philosophical
Paulinist tradition, especially one that begins to take Paul's
Judaism into account. Any biblical studies work that seriously
engages with the (political) philosophy of its concepts is sorely
welcome to the field of biblical studies.
We are quite accustomed to approaching theology from the front,
with reason and intellect. Only rarely do we approach from behind,
with imagination. And rarer still is theological engagement that
takes imagination seriously on its own terms. Theology, Fantasy,
and the Imagination uses examples from the fantastic to show us
insights into theology that can only be imagined, and in doing so,
greatly strengthens our overall theological engagement. And, it's a
lot of fun!
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